On 20 July 2010, United Airlines Flight 967 en route from Washington Dulles to Los Angeles encountered severe turbulence over the central US, and had to divert and land at Denver to medically treat nearly 30 passengers who suffered significant injuries. The flight track diversion is shown above (courtesy of FlightAware.com).

AWIPS images of 4-km resolution GOES-13 10.7 Âµm IR channel data (below) and GOES-13 6.5 Âµm water vapor channel data revealed large clusters of rapidly-developing thunderstorms over Kansas and Missouri during the afternoon and evening hours. The coldest GOES-13 cloud top IR brightness temperature was -81Âº C(violet color enhancement) at 22:45 UTC. However, it is unclear of the exact location of the turbulence encounter, since AWIPS plotted a SEVERE TURB report from UAL967 at Flight Level 34,000 feet over both Missouri and Kansas. Some media reports suggest that the event occurred over southwestern Missouri.

1-km resolution GOES-13 0.63 Âµm visible channel images (below) also showed a number of overshooting tops associated with these thunderstorms. The rawinsonde report from Springfield, Missouri indicated a maximum vertical velocity of 73 meters per second!

GOES-13 0.63 Âµm visible channel images + Pilot reports of turbulence

A closer view using McIDAS images of 1-km resolution GOES-15 and GOES-13 0.63 Âµm visible channel data (below) also shows the times of the aircraft positios as it approached the southeastern edge of the thunderstorm anvil.